Via Buzzfeed, here are 25 pictures of Mitt Romney looking “perfectly normal.” And he does.
But what struck me is how happy he looks in most of the pictures. He doesn’t look stiff and wooden and like the Mitt we all know and loathe. And I guess I just don’t get it. Look how happy he is in those pictures on the beach, playing with his grandkids. If I were in Mitt’s shoes, with a half a billion or however how much money he has, there is simply nothing you could do to make me go through the fresh hell of running for and then serving as President. He’s spent what- ten years traveling the country eating in shitty little dives, putting up with the bullshit of every potential voter. I get pissed when the animals wake me up at night, the last damned thing I want to do is get a 3 am phone call and then have to make life or death decisions. Or get up every day and spend the whole day reading briefing books and making horrible decisions (in my estimation, by the time something gets to the President’s desk, the options are to choose between bad or worse).
Why would anyone in his situation do that to themselves?
dr. bloor
Power for power’s sake. “Look dad, I was right and you’re a fucking loser.”
Guster
What’s the point of being super-rich if you still can’t do better than your father?
geg6
Daddy issues, obviously.
Which I, for one, have just about had enough of at this point. Why must these guys inflict their psychodramas on the rest of us?
Linnaeus
It’s what you do as part of the power elite.
MosesZD
I think he has Daddy issues and wants to prove, to his old man, that he’s better. Or perhaps the cartoonish construct of his old man that he keeps in his head… People being what they are tend to create mythological parents.
Only problem I see with Romney is that he’s focused on the bullshit aspects of being a ‘better man.’ And that’s at the cost of being ‘real’ or ‘true’ to himself.
Hill Dweller
@geg6:
FTW
Martin
His ‘Michigan trees are just the right height’ speech looked like my daughter practicing her first speech in front of me, plowing through where all of the punctuation would be in order to squeeze her topic in under the 3 minute time limit. It smelled like desperation.
It was like someone upgraded the CPU on the Romneybot and forgot to resync the speechifying program to the external clock.
Brachiator
Ambition.
Mike Furlan
He knows that his entire life has been a fraud, and he is desperate to try to retrieve it, somehow, no matter how many other people end up suffering.
freelancer
Seriously, agreed. Buzzfeed linked it earlier today, and I found it humanizing to Romney. Sure the dude’s got his own Rodeo grounds and is opposite of me politically, but now I feel a little more sympathetic to him than I did yesterday.
BGinCHI
Sociopath.
Anoniminous
FIFY
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
Daddy. The monkey that Mitt will never be able to get off his back.
Cluttered Mind
I don’t get it either. This man was my governor for years and I never once saw this side of him or even thought it existed. If this is the true face of Mitt Romney, then why would he ever want to subject himself to a campaign for President? I agree with Cole here 100%, this is a man who should be spending more time hanging out with and providing for that big happy family in the pictures, not running a campaign where every single picture ever taken of him shows him as awkward as we now know he has to feel doing it.
bemused
For the second time, Romney is running for the WH job. If he wants it that much, why does he look miserable?
Redshift commented in a previous post that Santorum is running for Pope of the US. So what is Romney running for?
Rosalita
Ego.
You’re welcome
slag
Rmoney’s definitely a guy who’s better off retiring to spend more time with his family.
jibeaux
Why does he look like a cleaned-up, sober, yuppie, Gary Busey? Or is it just me?
trollhattan
Beyond personal ambition, I believe the LDS church is persuasively behind his continual run. They really, really want to be that close to the reins of power, not only for the actual influence but also, too, for the legitimacy.
Funnily enough, I think that second bit would backfire once folks really learned what an automaton is our Mittens. They might as well run Tom Cruise.
ABL 2.0
ego.
ABL 2.0
aka “what rosalita said.”
Schlemizel
power. I want it – not the actual Presidency but the imperial one. And I’m a pretty easy going guy wanting unlimited power. For an ego-driven, greedy, sociopath like Willard it has to be an urge like that split second before orgasm where you know you will die if you don’t get it and would walk across broken glass in a burning building to punch through a brick wall to have it. power
The Bobs
“Why would anyone in his situation do that to themselves?”
Because they haven’t given much thought to what the job entails. Just like W, they want to be President, not do president.
For conservatives, all problems have easy, obvious answers. That’s the main attraction of the ideology.
KG
I’m going to throw one out there that will probably get laughed at, but… maybe he really does believe in serving others and thinks that his idea and policies would be best for the country. Lord knows if I had that kind of money, I’d be doing all the shit the guys on Top Gear (the real one not the bastardized US version) do.
anthrosciguy
Same reason as GW Bush: showing up daddy.
Redshift
One theory that some MSNBC guest was proposing (can’t remember who) is that Romney’s religion is really a central element in his life, and one that would be complete poison in the primaries and possibly the general election. So he’s spending his entire time on the campaign trail having to remember not to talk honestly about who he is, and come up with something else to say. That’d make almost anyone look constipated and uncomfortable. Though you’d think that since it’s his profession, like an undercover agent, he’d have learned to be better at it by now.
Of course, that just pushes the question of why down one level…
cathyx
If for your whole life you’ve been able to go anywhere you want, have anything you want, and basically do anything you want, it would get boring after a while. This is something different to do and not boring.
Palli
Look, Reagan didn’t run the county, in republican administrations-after President Johnson-the actions of the president are the actions of a committee we could call the Board Room cabinet. They deify Reagan because he didn’t make the decisions, the Republican Party inner core did; that fact must be not be part of the narrative.
DanielX
@The Bobs:
This is in keeping with my long and semi-seriously held belief that anyone who actually wants to be President ought to be automatically disqualified on grounds of criminal insanity. Have a national search for the most qualified guy who doesn’t want the job and make him (or her) President for one term and one term only.
Violet
Daddy issues. Ego. LDS church. And a sense of entitlement.
AT
How can an advisor not have told him to use a softer hair gel, when his hair is a little wavy and blowing about looks a thousand times more relatable.
I guess no one’s ever accused him of having good advisors though…
Redshift
@KG:
I’d say the most obvious counter to that is the fact that he basically checked out as governor of Massachusetts after it looked like he couldn’t get reelected and ran for president full-time. That doesn’t suggest a sincere desire to serve others. I suppose you could characterize that as believing in serving others and just being really bad at it, but that seems like a stretch.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
My understanding is that it’s not just a question of power. Look up the “White Horse Prophecy”. The Mormons honestly believe that a Mormon president is going to rescue the country when it’s in peril. Romney has publicly downplayed the prophecy, but I’m pretty sure he believes both that it’s true and that he’s going to be the one. Nothing like a messianic complex to make somebody do something he otherwise wouldn’t.
Thoughtcrime
Those photos are fake.
Republicants also have false implanted memories.
cat
He looks perfectly normal if you overlook the fact he’s sitting in rooms with furnishings worth more then a US median household, in homes worth more then $1M, in vehicles 90% of Americans can’t afford to own, or on vacations 99% of of can’t afford to go on.
But sure, if you overlook that stuff those pictures look perfectly normal.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
I don’t get it either, but then two people on an elevator is a crowd to me, and I don’t like crowds. I think it was Mo Udall that said, “once you get the wanting to be president bug, the only cure is embalming fluid” or something along those lines.
muddy
There has been a series of posts here ending with the thought that his father deserved a better son. It is the general consensus in the public I guess.
I would not want to have to inhabit that skin, I feel kind of sorry for him. He has everything but it will never be enough.
rea
His ‘Michigan trees are just the right height’ speech
Did he reeally say that? Because to someone like me, raised out west, Michigan trees all look oddly the same height. That’s because the whole state was logged off at the beginning of the 20th Century, and hasn’t really recovered.
existential fish
He cares that much about lowering his tax rates 5%.
Chuck Butcher
He’s made the mistake of believing that because when he’s amongst his own and liked/loved that it translates to a broader audience. He is surprised at the results.
Rick Massimo
I remember wondering something similar about Hillary: By all accounts of anyone who actually knows her, a smart, wickedly funny, extremely nice woman who is fascinating to talk with in real situations, who seemed to give campaign speeches with a thought bubble over her head that read “Gee, they don’t LOOK like morons, but Mark Penn told me to talk to them like they are, so here goes …”
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
I did not know that tidbit.
Sigh–every time I think I have this prophesizing bidnez figured out they come up with something even weirder and murkier.
PeakVT
here are 25 pictures of Mitt Romney looking “perfectly normal.”
Normal in a glossy magazine ad sort of way.
acallidryas
@KG
Now see, if that were the reason, it seems like he wouldn’t have spent his entire campaign proving that he has no ideas or policies of his own, and will go with whichever way the winds are blowing.
Donut
All I want to add to this thread is that if Barack Obama took a picture of himself and Michelle in that same convertible, with a bunch of little kids in the backseat not wearing seat belts (see pic #10), the wingers and haters would piss themselves with joy while beating out a posts all over the intertubez about how Barack Obama hates teh white Christian children of Amurka, and doesn’t care if they are safe, so long as he can convert them to his soshulist Islamfacist theology.
ETA – also, too, pic # 15 is creepy. That’s too many people for a hot tub, damn it.
Robert
I figured he probably wants to become President for the same reason Obama did — it is arguably the most powerful position in the world. Ambition and power-seeking are nothing new to human nature. Obama is one of the most cutthroat Machiavellians in modern political life, and it has long been evident that there is very little he wouldn’t do to obtain political office (Google “Alice Palmer” if you doubt me). Political power is often an end to itself. However, this discussion so far is obviously moot, given that the genius armchair psychoanalysts among the Balloon Juice commentaritat have settled the matter. Daddy issues it is.
nalbar
It’s all about the benjamins.
Some will say ‘but he has plenty’, and I would remind them that this guy had 300 million, and still stashed some in Swiss and cayman accounts to cheat on his taxes.
Money, for himself and his sons.
.
joes527
The presidency is to Mitt Romney as the white whale is to Captain Ahab.
Discuss.
muddy
@Martin:
It was odd, the way he paused after “trees” before he went on with the height. I don’t think height was his first thought. He genuinely looked to me to be happy about some aspect of the trees but then edited, and came up with something stupid on the spur of the moment. He is probably constantly processing what he is saying while he is saying it and thus neither the thought process nor what it produces is clear or real.
But what I wonder mostly, is what was it that he liked about the trees that he didn’t think he should say? Possibilities include nakedness, skeletons…
Suggestions?
rb
@DanielX: Right, the ol’ Catch-44. Or in Romney’s case this time around, 45.
Alex S.
Maybe he’s bored.
rb
@cat: in homes worth more then $1M
You’re probably lowballing it.
CarolDuhart2
I think there’s something to that Mormon thing. Most ordinary folks would have simply quit after coming in second to McGrumpy. It’s not like he’s young enough for another run, and any political advisor would have told him that an incumbent President with any real success would be hard to beat in any event. And he had a less-than stellar reception when he ran the last time, when things were easier.
But if he feels an internal pressure to fulfill a prophecy, or an external one by the movers and shakers of his church, he may have felt forced to run despite whatever internal misgivings or outer polls.
The prophecy could be why the Mormons aren’t doing the long game as well as other groups have, like Catholics and blacks. Both groups didn’t focus very hard on getting a president, instead working on getting greater public acceptance and filling the ranks of lower offices competently. As a result, a qualified candidate came from the ranks and was accepted by the public at large.
It doesn’t seem like the Mormons have done that. Instead of working their way up and out, filling offices all over the place, making their case for public acceptance, Mormons have stayed aloof from the general public. The result is that people are wary, they have a candidate who’s underqualifed and not even accepted by his own party.
Maybe the defeat of their golden man will make them think hard about that prophecy.
WaynersT
Romney remind me more and more of Fred Willard in Best in Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLhv3lD-E-0
WaynersT
Romney remind me more and more of Fred Willard in Best in Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLhv3lD-E-0
JC
@Violet:
I really do think that this is correct. I think what ‘tips it over’, is his work in the LDS church. He most likely thinks of it as a calling, for Mormons to ‘achieve respectability’ by being elected to the highest office in the land. Not in a weird way, but in the same way that it was great that a black man was elected President.
pseudonymous in nc
@bemused:
CEO of USA Capital Partners LCC.
pseudonymous in nc
@trollhattan:
That feels like a reach to me, and runs the risk of heading down the next-door rabbit hole to “shadow Mooslim [email protected]”. I still see Mitt The Management Consultant before I see Mitt The Mormon.
Frankensteinbeck
@Redshift:
If his religion is such a dominant part of his life that he can’t talk around it and is obviously half a man when the subject can’t be raised, then he has a second problem. Santorum’s religion is much less taboo, and he sounds totally natural… talking about how Satan is trying to take over the US.
EDIT – My point may not have been clear. If he’s that religious, no matter what religion it is he’s going to sound like a loon if he’s honest about it.
CarolDuhart2
The Management Consultant wouldn’t have run, or run so poorly. A good look at his objective odds would have been enough to have him sit it out after such a dismal run the last time. He wouldn’t have wanted to suffer again without a clear path to the nomination.
But Mitt the Mormon would have been compelled to keep hanging in there to give his religion respectability, and himself some glory for doing that. But that’s why there’s no core to his race. That’s why he can’t articulate what he would do as President. He’s running to please others and for his ambition only.
nepat
@pseudonymous in nc:
Exactly. Think of how many new connections that’ll get him on his LinkedIn profile.
YoohooCthulhu
I don’t know. Based off of everything I’ve ever read about Romney, he seems like a genuinely decent human being in his personal life, much more so than W. Bush or a lot of other high profile Republicans.
But I think he suffers the problem most successful Mormons have: they’re extremely simple people who live very straightlaced, conservative lives and living like that really precludes empathizing with people who’ve made mistakes. Their effective seclusion from pop culture and lifestyle of lots of Americans just makes them fundamentally uncomfortable except among their own. Being from a privileged background to begin with and being one of the wealthiest people in the US only amplifies this disconnect.
LongHairedWeirdo
I can imagine lots of reasons to want to be President.
One of my favorites was from an old episode (I guess they’re *all* old) of Beevis and Butthead. “Could you, like, take over a small country and then fly over it in a helicopter, saying “you all have to kiss my ass, I’m the President?””
You get to be a kind of hero, without the whole messy and ugly “putting your life at significant risk for uncertain gains” parts.
You get to do all kinds of favors for your friends, and make them really happy. And, it’s something you can kind of lord over them, no matter how important they are.
Sure, you’ve got to be willing to get a lot of people really angry with you – but if you’re a politician, (or a businessman like Mitt), you’re used to that – you might even get off on it (not saying it’s *sexual* – but it might be that, too).
Midnight Marauder
@KG:
You are aware this is a discussion about Mitt Romney, correct?
He whose soul has no real policies or ideas that define it?
Rafer Janders
He looks like a completely different person in some of those photos, to the extent that I wouldn’t have recognized them as pictures of Mitt Romney. It must be literally taking years off his life to keep up this charade.
Billy Beane
When I look at those all I can think of is, so this is what a future also ran presidential candidate and minor footnote in history looks like present tense.
HRA
I basically think both GW and Willard wanted to win one for Dad. Those SOBs stole it from you and I will get it back.
Say what you will about GW, he proved to be smarter than Romney in winning over people. He did not come across as wooden, uncomfortable or unable to speak.
Still I am with JC on this -why would anyone put themselves through this process to become president?
Rafer Janders
Bill Clinton’s one of the few people I can think of who looked equally relaxed in his public persona as he did in his private life — in some ways, he was probably even more relaxed in public, as that’s where he thrived.
chopper
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
ugh, embalming fluid sucks to get high off of.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
raw money made a lot of raw money turning his little trick, but there is only so much that can be made in “creative destruction”. this is a guy for whom money has always been an abstraction, a way of keeping score. the things he can spend it on aren’t limited in meaningful ways by how much he can spend.
however.
in terms of keeping score, he has fallen behind those who took the path of building and creating companies, and riding them to the top. in romney’s perception, what is the use of a few hundred million, when he has seen billions of dollars become the marker for the true financial elite?
so how does he score one on the x10billionaires? by getting the thing they can’t have, the ultimate immortality, the power of the presidency.
then you have the longest enduring friends and acquaintances of mitt going back to byu and before who told him he was going to be their mormon president. he was going to be the one who takes mormonism mainstream in the most mainstream way, by becoming president.
yeah he has a huge ego, but he also has a world view limited by a few thousand people who are financial peers, or betters, and the few thousand people he knows as the mormon who is gonna make it, and make good for his non-mainstream faith.
Jamey
I’d be smiling all the time, too, if I had magic underwear…
PeakVT
@Jamey: I’d be smiling all the time, too, if I was worth 250 million simoleons.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@chopper:
In the army we had something we called “12 volt” or a joint dipped in formaldyhide . It’s a wonder I survived all that crazy shit without drooling too much.
Larkspur
@CarolDuhart2:
I think this has a lot of truth to it. I think he has discovered he really does not enjoy this whole gig, but he can’t stop because he’s been the front-runner for so long, and being a quitter is a fate worse than death. He looks so presidential; everyone says so, and everyone has been saying so for years. It’s like being miserable while you strive to make partner; you do it because otherwise what is the point to your life?
It’s almost like an automatic car wash, you know, where you shift into neutral, then there’s that pause, then the tracks start rolling your car through. It’s not impossible to get out of your car midway, and I suppose you could even shift into drive and slam past those big wiper thingies, but nobody does that, and it’s gonna be messy.
Joel
Candidate Faustus will do anything to win the Presidency.
g
@KG: I’d believe that if he had an actual principled position on policies.
Pat in Michigan
John,
We’re about as far apart on politics, as it gets.
But, I actually agree with you on this one.
Kudos to you.
In fact, I might quote your sissy liberal butt in my posting that I am crafting. ;) :D :P
-Pat in Michigan
Arclite
Wow, his face looks totally different. It’s almost like looking at photos of a different person.
cbear
Thanks for the link to those beautiful pictures of Mitt and the Mittsters. It’s wonderful to see him looking so happy. Very heartwarming.
Here is a picture of John Wayne Gacy in his clown suit.
He looks very happy too.
rikyrah
he believes that HE should be President.
that’s the bottom line, Cole. I don’t see why this is hard for folks to see.
he is the EPITOME of the entitled rich, White man in America.
Patricia Kayden
Romney is running so that he can lower the tax rate for people of his financial ilk. He’s currently paying 13%. Why not lower it even further?
I can’t see any other reason that a billionaire would want to take on the challenges of the Presidency.
PurpleGirl
@Arclite: He colors his hair. In most of those pictures there is more gray on the top.
Baud
Romney looks not-normal when he moves and talks, so I’m not too surprised that he looks normal in still photos.
andy
@Redshift: That’s exactly what Tim Pawlenty did here in Minnesota- except in Timmeh’s case he destroyed his own state in the bargain.
Almost like a gang initiation thing, come to think of it…
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore:
From wikipedia:
Bolding in the final sentence is mine, and I have to say I completely agree with that line. Our constitution is hanging by a thread, and I think we will be saved by the efforts of the White Horse – Romney’s efforts will allow us to retain Barack Obama as president once again, thus preserving our democracy.
Some Loser
@rikyrah:
I concur.
I think it is a combination of this, that Mormon prophecy thing, and him realizing he does not like this.
He probably thought being President would be a great gig, and all he had to do was put a (R) after his name and he’d be the big man. Turns out this campaigning thing sucks hard.
Roger Moore
@cbear:
I think it would be great if we could give him some more time to spend doing fun things like that. The voters could give him all the free time he wants to take with a vote for Obama this November.
farmette
When I look at these photos I see some tension between Mitt and Wife. I think Mitt is a moving target, out there and inside.
charyl
Ego, narcissism, and an Oedipus Complex. The big three.
muddy
@Larkspur:
uptown
To run the world the proper way and put those f#[email protected] hippies in their place.
CG
@freelancer: I find these pictures just heartbreaking. I look at how happy he looks there, and how awkward and stiff and uncomfortable he looks on the campaign trail, and just wish someone would tell him it’s OK to stop.
mclaren
Because, John, even with half a billion in the bank, you can’t point to some American citizen and say “His speeches offend me. Kill him! KILL HIM NOW!”
But if you’re president of the United States, you can do that.
And people like General Crackpot Fake Name will applaud you for it.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@joes527: I think is more like the dog chasing the car. What would will he do if he catches it?
MJ
@Robert: Aaand into the Pie Filter with you!
RadioOne
Why should anyone want to be President? Because it’s a prime gig that just might ensure you relevance in future history books. Ambitious people like the idea of being remembered.
Epicurus
It would surprise me not in the least to discover that there is an element of “God owes me this” in Romney’s run(s) for the Presidency. As so little is really known about the LDS, it’s entirely possible that there was a prophecy, written on gold plates, etc. I just hate him because he’s such an obvious hypocrite. Bring on Santorum!! (I must go take a shower now.)
Paul in KY
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): I’ve also heard that called ‘wet’. Hope you don’t do that anymore ;-)
Uncle Cosmo
@WaterGirl: They’re getting close. The only thing left is to dig up a White Horse’s Front to attach to the White Horse’s Ass they have for a candidate…